1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and more specifically, an image forming apparatus including a replaceable unit attached in a replaceable manner to the apparatus main body.
2. Background Art
As an image forming apparatus, there is known one having a unit including a consumable article being able to be replaced readily by a user.
On the other hand, when a unit replaced by a user is other than genuine units of the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus may not fully show its performance due to lowering in image quality, etc., its operation cannot be guaranteed, or a problem such as a malfunction may occur. The reason for this is that the image forming apparatus controls the image forming process on the basis of the properties of toner, the characteristics of the image carrier, charging voltage, cleaning performance, and fixing performance, etc.
Therefore, in order to maintain the image quality of the image forming apparatus and prevent problems, in JP-A-10-133528, a method for judging whether or not a consumable article has been replaced for a genuine replaceable part by comparing a consumption amount detected by a consumption amount detection part provided inside the apparatus main body and consumption amount data held by a data carrier by providing the genuine replaceable part with the data carrier for holding a consumption amount of a consumable article.
Furthermore, JP-A-6-149051 discloses that a storage unit for storing predetermined code data is provided for a toner cartridge, and when a copying machine main body side cannot read the predetermined code data from the storage unit, copying is prohibited.
In addition, in JP-A-2001-100598, a method is disclosed in which when empty information written in a cartridge is readout from the toner filled cartridge in a case where toner exhaustion has been detected, a warning is indicated and printing is prohibited.
Furthermore, in Japanese Patent No. 2602341, a method is disclosed in which a count of created images is stored in a memory of a cartridge, and when a preset finish count indicating the number of images creatable by the cartridge is equal to a count of created images, the cartridge is made unusable thereafter.
Furthermore, in Japanese Patent No. 3476704, a method is disclosed in which, by bidirectional communications between a container side communications unit of a toner supply container and a main body side communications unit of an apparatus main body, when it is judged that the attached toner supply container is nonconforming, and it is selected by a select input unit that supply processing is to be continued by ignoring the judgment as nonconforming, image forming conditions on a level lower than the level of proper image forming conditions are set so that it can be found readily that the toner supply container is nonconforming.
Furthermore, in JP-A-2-81056, a method is disclosed in which information corresponding to a consumption degree of a consumable article is written in an involatile memory provided in the consumable article and the life management of the consumable article is performed.